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Moneyman wrote::mrgreen: As usual. you have written your thoughts comprehensively and with exhaustive detail. No stone unturned.

There are a few things about this game that didn't appear in your post.

Our UserOFCode (A title I prefer to game God) is stuck in Indie and can't (apparently) address the following:

1. The bigger the player stake, in game Real Estate, the bigger the means to influence the economy ... No taxes to curb appetite.2. There is generally only one way to accomplish most tasks: No comprehension that all humans don't have equal ability to do things.3. There is no economic balance to the opposites Trading and Mining: The focus is material acquisition .. Trading is an afterthought.4. Game design, don't hate me for this, is heavily focused on how cleverly obstacles are put in the player's way ... especially mining.

This game has one thing that sets it apart from every other Steam game I've looked at: Player fellowship of the first order.

1. Both the game Wiki and game Forum are superior to all its competitors.2. There are special, unduplicatable players like you Moon and RAM, LadyHawk, Bozack and so many more.3. We want to keep, forever, every last new player we're lucky enough to get to know.

Ask any player in Eve whats so special about that game? Constant beatings by miscreants.

I don't know about you but I'll take fellowship over some idiot blowing up my stuff ... Every Day.

I'm still a new kid on the block, but think I have enough grasp of the game now after 170 hours in 2 weeks.

Player Stock MarketThe trading is a clumsy system. Yes, if a player stock trade cannot be fulfilled for what ever reason, their market should be shut down and removed from the search. If it can only be partially fulfilled or only some parts, then a message should be given as to why the trade cannot be performed.

NPC Local Market and Contract BoardIMO, there needs to be a stabilization of the price system. This should be based on a perceived time to gather these resources and a set price for each item. This could be set by the president, but within set limits to keep the game balance. The NPC's offering above the line price is perfectly acceptable so long as it is not excessive. Running from point A to point B with a hull full of carbon, purchased at 1 credit per ton and sold to the i9 at 1000 credits per ton is just plain ridiculous for a game mechanic. Not only that, but it is a mindless task for new players after the first few days. This is the first thing I felt would loose new players as it is quite boring but necessary to purchase the bigger ship hulls so you can ship more carbon.

Galactic MarketIn this area, the Galactic Market needs to have set limits to how long a listing should appear. A listing past one month means that the asking price is unrealistic and it will never sell. The player doing this will need to log back in and put the listing up time and again if he wants to play that stupid game.

NPC PilotsI haven't played long enough to understand how the NPC pilots work so I can't really comment, but it seems obvious to me that you should be able to run a report to find the current status of what your hirelings are doing.

Now, keeping new players.....As per my recent posts, I do like the fundamental mechanics of this game. Not everyone wants to be shot out of the sky as soon as they undock, so a PVE game holds my interest. If the PVE system was balanced and encounters set to be random in transit for example, I wouldn't have a problem with that, but the game mechanics needs to be balanced so you can defend yourself from day 1 of playing.

Research - this system is completely flawed in my opinion. Yes, research should have fixed times to learn, but why not a 2x modifier so the research goes faster when you are playing the game. This makes sense to me, but of course, there will need to be inactivity timers set to log you out so that system can't be exploited.

I was involved with a "second life" style game built on the Unity engine where complete customization of the avatar was a fundamental part of the game. This included 3rd party created 3D objects and clothing as a complete market system. So, why can't something like this be built into the game where you can host a music stream in your colony and have your avatar friends drop over for a bit of social interaction? (The game project was called NuVera and I can put you in touch with the indy developer. The game was recently shut down because of time commitments and competition in that space but I'm sure the code still exists)

In keeping with this whole experience thing, ship selection needs to be completely overhauled. Take a look at where Star Citizen is now. Your ship is a fashion statement and this is what a lot of people like to see in a 3D game. I understand there are poly limits with the Unity engine, so you'll never get ships looking like SC, but the existing ships could do with a makeover and doubling of the poly count.

Anyway, for me at this 170 hour point after 2 weeks, I am loosing complete interest in the game because of the mindless tedium that I need to undertake to get to the point of building a trading colony and settling in to be a useful participant in the expansion of the universe. Firstly, there seems to be very little representation of this time commitment to the game from the point where you have completed the 'set pieces' of the NPC missions and i9 colony building to the point where you can start building out your colony, exploring to find suitable planets for terraforming, and expanding the gate network. This could be made more acceptable with more NPC missioning, an improved PVE system, and set economies for ship construction so it is not left to one person building ships and armourments. With set economies, there is still room for discounted trading or even the system Star Citizen intend where you can buy off the shelf parts, but if the parts are not in stock, you will be informed of how soon the items will be made available. This whole guess work is simply not good for any game and I can see why there is a poor retention factor. People are looking for entertainment, and they certainly don't want to play a game that would remind them of their regular tedium of employment.

“The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created.This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” ― Douglas Adams

for me as a 4 year player it's time to build galactic empire, but the economics and top end stuff is not built yet.The mining is an issue (because I can only justify mining once aged) it makes mining a limited reason to be active.

i cannot judge about a lot of aspects like NPC Gates building Markets or Colonies because i have not reached that level, i have just made some simple transactions researches and operations ISB SB mining etc.

First of all the Community is great!you can expect to receive immediate help and feedback and even ship or parts loaned for free if you need something.this is invaluable to further progess in the game

I think Ascent is great, and will hopefully be even better in the future but:

- regular fixes and updates could convince a lot of people in Steam to buy the game. a game not updated in 6 months is perceived as a dead project- i tend personally to be a lot more forgiving for games developed by small teams or by a single person!- i can just partially observe and judge about glitches because i am just new to the game, therefore my evalution is positive and i could recommend the game

- it is very annoying in Prime finding items for sale linked to dead or abandoned colonies. 12 months time to delete fake contracts should be fair enough- establishing colonies is a pain. even the very simple Overhead view could help a lot

- Ascent is a niche game. 95% of Steam games involve combat shooting weapons etc. becase that's what especially young people wants.- EVE Online cannot be compared. its astonishing complexity cannot be reached or achieved (so far at least).it is full of PVP and PVE even on epic scales - Eve Online consume your private life. Ascent let's you login for 15-30 minutes if you want.

- I discovered Ascent just by chance. I always look for promising space games!!!! but Space games are so complex to build that it is very unlikely to discover a good one that you do not find repetitive or boring after 30 hours.Ascent's Steam reviews are very few, press coverage is zero, searching the web has just few opinions or lead to the game wiki/forum. the great job of Waervyn and other for tutorials on youtube is totally outdated. it is absolutely not easy to discover that a game named Ascent simply exists.

- i could not play or purchase the 2015 version with that orrible graphic!!!!!- this is not the way to attract/keep new players- Ascent imao is a game for aficionados. people clever enough to understand that pvp pve can be a not so relevant part of space games......But more highlights are needed, constant updates and fixes. new appealing functionalities: more wreck or relics , planet anomalies rewards for deep-space exploring. i repeat i cannot judge or suggest about the advanced games mechanics, i am a noob

Finally if (i put myself in) we succeed in keeping and grow the players base, the heavy wheel will spin by itself.Enthusiasm will grow, more players, more traffic, more ships colonies, trading exploration etc....there are many ways to convince a reviewermany ways to have some press articlesmany ways to publish positive feedbackmany ways to add positive reviews on Steamlot of people will or could join because their friends play Ascent.Ascent can be one of the very few games that keeps you there!!!!!no more searching for a better one!!! or a different one!!!